They don't make lathes like they use to. And they don't have the accuracy or last like the old-time lathes use to. Back in the day when you had the likes of Hardinge, Monarch, LeBlond, Warner & Swasey and a few others, when you talked about spindle runout, it was in the millionths. Today you sometimes see some halfway decent copies. But even those will run you $40k to $50k for a new 10" x 20'" unit. If a person would run across a good used Hardinge high precision tool room lathe for $15k to $20k it would be a great investment. But probably not a handful of people around that could really operate them. I use to say when I first started moving machinery that they were built out of cast steel, heavy as hell, accurate, and nearly indestructible. Hell they were actually rebuildable. But today they are made out of sheet metal, glass, computers and fiber optics, just look at them wrong and they will break.
Phil
